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1878] to see how easily his pride was offended and his anger roused by any attempt of the party with which at the time he was allied to control and influence his policy. No one of the alliances lasted long, and he seems to have taken peculiar pleasure in breaking away from each of them in turn when the time came.

The alliance with the Conservatives which he had inherited from the older days had begun to break directly after 1866. Many of them had been disappointed by his policy in that year. The grant of universal suffrage had alarmed them; they had wished that he would use his power to check and punish the Parliament for its opposition; instead of that he asked for an indemnity. They felt that they had borne with him the struggle for the integrity of the Prussian Monarchy; no sooner was the victory won than he held out his hand to the Liberals and it was to them that the prize went. They were hurt and disappointed, and this personal feeling was increased by Bismarck's want of consideration, his brusqueness of manner, his refusal to consider complaints and remonstrances. Even the success of 1870 had not altogether reconciled them; these Prussian nobles, the men to whom in earlier days he himself had belonged, saw with regret the name of King of Prussia hidden behind the newer glory of the German Emperor; it is curious to read how even Roon speaks with something of contempt and disgust of this new title: "I hope," he writes, "Bismarck will be in a better temper now that the Kaiser egg has been safely hatched." It was, how-